


put your trust in me

by idioglossia



Series: Christmas Fics 2019 [5]
Category: Magisterium Series - Holly Black & Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, Constantine Madden Is Good At Heart, M/M, Pre-Canon, he's just got some twisted morals and Joseph manipulating him, this is gray i'm writing for of course there's gonna be angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21954409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idioglossia/pseuds/idioglossia
Summary: Constantine placed one hand on Alastair’s face fondly. “I also know that you’re not going to want to come stay with me right away.  You’ve always been so dedicated to the Magisterium even if you’ve never been all that studious, and I know that you’d never bring  any risk to your family. But when the time is right-”There, he paused to slip something into Alastair’s hand. It felt leathery on one side, but the other side varied. He glanced down to confirm his suspicions, and it was indeed a wristband. Constantine’s wristband.“Then I hope you’ll come back to me,” Constantine finished, looking hopefully at Alastair.ORHow Alastair got Constantine’s wristband.
Relationships: Alastair Hunt/Constantine Madden
Series: Christmas Fics 2019 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1580572
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	put your trust in me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tea_For_One](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tea_For_One/gifts).



Ever since Jericho had died, things in their apprentice group had been different. There was, of course, the fact that a member of their group was gone for good, but that was hardly the end of it. Declan had taken to crying at odd times, Sarah to staring into space. Master Rufus was no longer such a patient, collected man, instead closed off and stone-eyed. 

Alastair himself felt completely off-balance. Jericho had been the very heart of their group, the mediator who balanced out Constantine’s headstrong nature, Declan’s quiet strength, Sarah’s chatty side, and Alastair’s particular brand of crazy. Without him there, they all felt like too much. Much too much.

And Constantine- oh, Constantine. Alastair had read the account of a Makar who’d lost his counterweight once, and the pain he seen had described there had been- unimaginable. She’d described it as an open wound, even years after having lost them. Constantine certainly proved that statement true. 

Three months later and he still barely made eye contact, hardly emerged from his lessons with Master Joseph. Even on his dates with Alastair out to the Gallery, Constantine remained distant. When he usually pressed up against him, Con sat primly on the couch during movies. It was clear that he blamed himself entirely.

These past few days had seen some improvement, which was a good sign. True, Constantine had only emerged from the labs a few times, but when he had, he’d looked like he had a sense of purpose again. It might not have been the old passion he held, but it was something. Something was better than nothing, right?

Right?

-

Alastair stared at his watch and sighed. Constantine was running late. Nowadays, that wasn’t so uncommon, but even now, Constantine usually didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to arrive. Today, he was more than thirty minutes late. The movie they were going in the Gallery to see was well into the first act. He was halfway to just going and forgetting about his boyfriend, but something made him hold onto hope.

What he was done with, however, was waiting around. Alastair knew that Constantine was still with Master Joseph, doing makar lessons. He knew that if no one intervened at this point, they would just keep going until one of them got too tired to continue.

He stood and started down to the lower layers, where the lab was. It was somewhat of a long walk, one of the only ones with multiple flights of stairs, but Alastair made his way through it as fast as he could. He didn’t pay his surroundings much attention, having made the trip many times before. Alastair’s focus was instead on Constantine, thinking about the estranged nature of their relationship as of late.

They had been together for a little over a year at this point, and so far they’d shown no signs of ending things. Alastair knew that at the very least, he was as strangely enamoured with Constantine as he had been back then. This was a rough patch to their relationship, to be sure, but they would make it through. They always had, whether they were friends or otherwise entangled.

After was simultaneously felt like no time at all and all the time in the world, Alastair was standing in front of the stone wall that would lead him to the lab. As a courtesy, he knocked once, but he’d been down here many times before. Without bothering for a response, Alastair stepped through.

The first thing that struck him as odd was the fact that Joseph wasn’t there. Usually, he hardly left Constantine’s side as they experimented. In fact, the master seemed completely obsessed with both Con and chaos.

The second thing that he found strange was the fact that Constantine had been completely alone before this moment and yet he was still using chaos magic. There was a large amount swirling around his hand, and yet there was no way that Con was using a counterweight.

The third and most horrifying thing that Alastair saw in that lab was a dead body.

It was laid out before Constantine, eyes closed and skin liberally painted with colours no human skin should ever be, a sickly green-yellow in places and purple in others. Where it wasn’t bruised, it was waxy and almost grey, the blue veins starkly visible.

As Alastair watched, Constantine brought up the chaos and let it fall like a mist over the corpse. It was slowly absorbed, and he found he couldn’t tear his eyes away, despite his horror. Look away, he told himself. Look away. His eyes remained stationary.

It was only when the body moved, oh my god, it just moved, that Alastair was able to respond.

“Con?” he said, voice strangled, and Constantine swivelled around, shocked. “What-”

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” he said quickly, as if that explained anything. “Alastair, I-”

“What the fuck just happened- oh god, it’s moving, why is it moving?” he babbled, the insanity of the situation starting to get to him.

“Stay,” Constantine said firmly. For a moment, Alastair thought he was talking to him, and he felt a flash of indignation rise. Then, the corpse stopped moving, and he put two and two together.

There was a heavy silence for a moment, Constantine looking anywhere but Alastair and Alastair unable to tear his eyes away from his boyfriend.

“What-” he started again, breaking the silence. “What was that?”

At last, Constantine made eye contact. He sighed, then scrubbed at his face with one hand. “It’s- it’s kind of a long story. Can I show you?”

He stretched out one hand, inviting Alastair to take it. It took a moment of hesitation, but he slowly crossed the room and placed his hand in Constantine’s own. He was rewarded with a tired but genuine smile.

“This is what I’ve been working on with Master Joseph since- since the accident happened,” Constantine explained, gesturing vaguely at the not-quite-a-corpse. “You know the principle of pairs?”

Alastair nodded. It was a well-known law of magic, that every element had access to a little piece of its counterweight. He didn’t like the idea of it being used in respect to chaos magic though; that just sounded like a bad idea, on so many levels.

“Well, I’m trying to apply it to chaos. To bring Jericho back. I haven’t been successful yet, obviously, and I don’t want to risk hurting him. I think-” he broke off into a whisper, his eyes slightly manic. “I think that I can. I think I can bring him back right.”

“Right?” Alastair questioned, growing alarmed.

Constantine gestured at the- the creature behind him. “The soul is a complicated thing to handle. If you make even the smallest mistake, everything goes wrong and you end up with one of… these. They’re shells, essentially, powered by chaos. As far as I can tell, they’re really dead, with the chaos just acting as a sort of fill in.”

“What are they?” he asked, stepping closer, a morbid fascination taking him over. The not-corpse’s eyes swirled all sorts of colours, a little bit like how Constantine had explained seeing souls.

“At the moment, I’m calling them Chaos-ridden. If anyone has made one before, they didn’t let any historians know, and so it’s left up to me to work something out. And Joseph, I suppose, but he’s not so big on that sort of thing.”

“Joseph knows what you’re doing down here?” Alastair asked and received a nod in confirmation.

“Master Joseph knows about everything I do down here. He helps me come up with a lot of my experiments actually, so he’s very familiar with them,” Constantine said soothingly. “Even if he’s not in the room at the moment, he’s very careful about my safety.”

Alastair begged to differ, but that was how he tended to feel about Joseph’s relationship with Constantine. Something about that man just rubbed him the wrong way.

“As long as you’re being safe,” he said, but the words tasted hollow in his mouth. “You know I worry about you, down here on your own.”

Constantine smiled again, pressing a quick kiss to Alastair’s cheek. “Thank you for being so understanding. It felt terrible to keep this a secret from you, but not everyone will see this the way that we do, and Master Joseph didn’t want to take that risk. He said we should just wait until we were closer to bringing back Jericho.”

“You can trust me with anything,” Alastair said automatically, but what he really wanted to say was please, please never show me or talk about any of this ever again. “I’m your boyfriend.”

“I know that now, although it seems so paranoid in retrospect. I mean, you’ve always been there for me, even through this whole mess with my brother, and with everything else. Now that Jericho’s- gone, you’re probably the closest person I have left,” Constantine admitted, looking Alastair in the eyes in a rare show of vulnerability. There were the beginning of tears there and he reached up to thumb them gently away. “I know I haven’t always been the best at showing it or saying it, but I really love you, Alastair, and if anyone had to find out before they were supposed to, I’m really glad it was you.”

There was nothing that he could say to that; it was Constantine who was good with words, not him. So Alastair leaned forwards silently and kissed his boyfriend with all the affection he could muster, all the while trying to repress the doubts stirring in his head.

When the broke away, Constantine was beaming. Then he jolted a little, animatedly in thought for a moment and yes, this was the Constantine Alastair had started dating, even with the eye bags and chapped lips. “So, what brought you down here? I assume it wasn’t just to come see me?”

“It’s Thursday,” Alastair said by way of explanation and Constantine’s face immediately contorted with guilt.

“Is it? And- oh my god, look at the time. I’m so sorry, Alastair, the day completely slipped my mind,” Con said, and he knew that he was being genuine. “I think it’s too late to catch that movie, but is there anything else you want to do?”

“I just want to spend time with you,” he said honestly. “It’s not like I cared what movie they were playing anyways.”

Constantine’s lips quirked up at the corners again. “Well, I am officially yours for the rest of tonight. This stuff’s not that important anyways, I can leave this stuff out until tomorrow.”

They ended up going to the Gallery anyways, even though it was indeed too late for the movie. Constantine sat curled up next to Alastair on the couch and they talked and talked and talked and Alastair didn’t have to think about the earlier events until much, much later that night.

-

Standing in front of a doorway was the worst place to be. It wasn’t just a practical thing, although the dangers of being hit in the nose by a rushing passerby were very real. It was more the decision that standing in front of a door represented.

In Alastair’s case, there were very few practical risks and many, many choices to make. For the past two and a half weeks, Constantine had been the model of a perfect boyfriend. He had been almost like the Constantine Alastair had thought he’d lost along with Jericho, although their conspiratorial glances back then had been of a very different nature.

On the other hand, the more Alastair learnt about what Constantine was doing in the labs, the more horrified he had become. It was almost like they were two different people, except for the moments when Constantine would pause mid-morbid explanation to make a joke about something or another and flash Alastair that signature cheeky smile. The things that happened down there- god, they were enough to give him nightmares.

And that was why he stood before Master Rufus’ door, on the verge of a choice. To make a decision: keep Constantine and walk away; intervene and possibly loose him forever.

If he was an outsider, Alastair would have called the decision a no-brainer. Keep your boyfriend or expose his morally questionable and death related workings to the proper authorities? Pssh, call nine-one-one on his ass. But that was the perspective of someone who hadn’t known Con since he was twelve, who hadn’t learned that he was a deeply good person, who cared about his brother and his friends and his boyfriend more than anything.

Too many times to count, he reached out to touch the doorknob before jerking his hand back, stuck in his deliberation. In the end, the choice had to be made for Alastair; Master Rufus opened it, and stopped short when he saw his student in the doorway.

“Alastair,” he said, recovering his composure quickly. “What a surprise. What brings you all the way over here?”

He swallowed. He had made his bed, and now he had to lie in it. “It’s about… Constantine. And Joseph. And what they’ve been working on as of late.”

Rufus’ brow furrowed. “I think you’d better come inside, then.”

He held the door open wide, stepping aside to allow Alastair entrance. Alastair stepped obligingly inside, and the door clicked softly shut behind him.

Master Rufus’ rooms were simple but inviting. As might have be expected from a fire mage, there was a red motif, and Alastair thought he spotted the bowl the master had used when teaching them about scrying through fire. He sat slightly awkwardly on one of his teacher’s armchairs, across from him.

“So,” Master Rufus said, settling down. “You had something to tell me about Constantine?”

“Yes,” Alastair replied, a little too fast. He took a deep breath before he connoted, hoping it would help to calm his nerves. “I’m worried about him, and about what’s going on down in the labs. I, um, he showed me some of the things that he’s been working on, told me about some of the experiments, and they’re… they’re not good.”

Rufus leaned forwards, a frown on his face. “Could you be a little more specific? I believe you completely, but if I’m going to bring this up to the other teachers, which I think I’m going to have to, I’m going to need something a bit more substantial.”

He took another deep breath, but it did little to help his nerves. Then Alastair opened his mouth and started talking. He told Master Rufus everything that he knew, at first slowly and then all at once. Rufus had to stop him a few times when his words started to slur together, either from panic or tears. In the end, when he was finished recounting Constantine’s madness, Alastair felt empty. Not the kind of emptiness that came after releasing a great burden, but the kind of emptiness that came after throwing up until you had nothing left to expunge.

Master Rufus, on the other hand, looked mad. He rubbed at his brow, which was wrinkled with distaste. “Thank you for trusting me with this, Alastair. I understand how difficult this whole situation must have been for you, and I admire your bravery in telling me this.”

The master took a deep breath before continuing. “As I thought from the start, I will need to bring this up with my superiors, especially Master North. I’ll do my best to fight in Constantine’s best interest, as I don’t think that he’s acting entirely under his own power, but… this is bad. I don’t need to tell you that, but I feel that I need to impress upon you exactly how bad.

“At a bare minimum, Constantine will need to face a full enquiry from the Assembly. If that goes poorly, then he could be facing anything from a trial to immediate incarceration. Joseph will be almost certainly be facing jail time, at a very minimum,” Master Rufus exhaled, looking tired. “It seems unthinkable that he would do this. I knew him for so long…”

“And I thought I would always know Constantine,” Alastair said quietly, and Rufus’s gaze jolted to him. “People change, and there’s little we can do to stop that.”

Rufus laughed lightly, but not humorously. “I suppose that you’re right, Alastair. You’re wise beyond your years, sometimes.”

He stood and strolled over to the door, opening it. Alastair followed after him, recognizing the time to leave when he saw it.

Just before he left, Master Rufus grabbed his arm. “I’ll protect Constantine as best as I can, Alastair. I promise.”

Alastair smiled. “I believe you.”

-

Coming home that year, Alastair still felt shell-shocked. First, Jericho, and then Constantine. The entire school year had been a mess, and Alastair was just glad it was over. To get away from the ghost of his boyfriend, to finally be hidden form the suspicious looks, to escape the shocked horror that seemed to have consumed his apprentice group.

He sat on the bus, if not with joy, then at least with unusual tolerance. Alastair spent the whole first leg of the long ride staring out the window, thinking about what he would do once he finally got back to his home in North Carolina.

It certainly wasn’t like he had better things to do- no one on the bus was willing to look Alastair in the eyes, let alone talk to him.

That isolation followed him during the thirty minute lunch break. One Alastair ordered his sandwich, he knew that his social interaction was done for the day, at least until he saw his parents. So that he could at least enjoy his solitude, he sat over by the small patch of forest. The grass was looking rather brown and it crunched unpleasantly when Alastair stepped on it, but he sat there anyways. It was at least a little bit of an upgrade from the plastic bus seats.

Alastair was about halfway through his sandwich when he started hearing rustling in the woods. At first, he assumed it was some sort of small wildlife- a squirrel, or perhaps even a rabbit. But the sounds keep getting louder and closer, until he was forced to turn his head and investigate.

There, standing in between the trees, was Constantine.

He wasn’t close, but Alastair could have recognized that jacket, that hair, that stance anywhere. Constantine’s back was to him, and he still somehow managed to make himself look beckoning.

To go or not to go? On one hand, Alastair was ready to be done with this entire fucking mess. But on the other hand, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to risk Constantine coming any closer. For his own sake, Alastair told himself. If Constantine was seen with him, then this entire ordeal would just be drawn out longer. He’d be a suspect too.

(No matter how much he wanted to deny it, some part of Alastair still wanted to protect Constantine. Even when he knew that what his boyfriend- ex, now, he supposed- was doing was bad, was wrong, was disgusting, he couldn’t bring himself to be the one who turned him in.)

So he got up, glancing about quickly to make sure no one was watching him. Then Alastair strode quickly into the woods, walking as quickly and soundlessly as he could towards Con. The other boy didn’t turn around when he approached.

“Alastair,” Constantine said, voice warm, and his stomach dropped to his toes. He had expected Con to be hostile, to ask why Alastair had betrayed him, but instead-

Instead, he sounded just as fond as before. Instead, he sounded like he didn’t know what his ex-boyfriend had done.

“Constantine,” he replied, keeping his voice carefully neutral. He still hadn’t turned to face Alastair, which was more than a little suspicious.

“I was a little worried that you wouldn’t come, but really, I should have known better than to doubt you like that. You’ve kept all my secrets before,” he admitted, and then he finally turned to face him. Alastair couldn’t control the sharp gasp that escaped him. 

Most of Constantine’s face was covered by gauze, and what little wasn’t didn’t look anything like what he remembered. It was all- red, and- and swollen, and disfigured. Alastair reached out to touch his face, then jerked his hand back. That must have hurt beyond belief, even all these months later.

“Not quite what you remember me looking like, eh?” Constantine said softly, and it occurred to Alastair that he looked upset. “The price of getting away with my life, you know. Sometimes you have to sacrifice your good looks.”

“I’d rather have you alive than a beautiful corpse,” Alastair murmured, almost without thinking about it. It seemed like it was the right thing to say; Constantine gave him a wan smile and took his hand.

“I want you to know that I know it wasn’t you who told the masters, no matter what Joseph might think,” he said, and Alastair felt a sudden pang of intense guilt. It was, in a way, him who had done this to Constantine, and now here he was, telling Alastair that he knew it wasn’t him who had done it. “It would have gotten out at some point, and it seems that point was just sooner rather than later.”

Constantine placed one hand on Alastair’s face fondly. “I also know that you’re not going to want to come stay with me right away. You’ve always been so dedicated to the Magisterium even if you’ve never been all that studious, and I know that you’d never bring any risk to your family. But when the time is right-”

There, he paused to slip something into Alastair’s hand. It felt leathery on one side, but the other side varied. He glanced down to confirm his suspicions and it was indeed a wristband. Constantine’s wristband.

“Then I hope you’ll come back to me,” Constantine finished, looking hopefully at Alastair.

“I hope I will too,” he said, genuinely unsure of whether or not he was telling a lie. “But for now, I need to go.”

“I’ll miss you until then,” Constantine said, and god, why couldn’t Alastair just make up his mind? Did he want to stay with Con or leave him?

“Until then,” he heard himself say, and then they were separated and then Alastair was getting on the bus and then he was home and then he was in bed, and he was still thinking about what Constantine had said.

It wasn’t even just what he’d said. His face… Alastair was sure he’d have nightmares about it. That wasn’t the kind of thing that should have happened when the masters confronted him and Joseph. That was the kind of thing that should never happen to anyone, no matter what they’d done.

For what felt like the millionth time, Alastair reached down to touch the wristband, which he’d put on his own wrist. His parents knew little about magic, so they’d just assume it was part of some passing fad, and none of his neighbours were magical, so there was little risk with wearing it outside of the Magisterium.

Once again, Alastair was standing in front of a doorway, although there wasn’t one physically present. And this time, there was no one to make the decision but him.


End file.
